12 Oct. John Cabot University in Rome presents its Italy Reads keynote address by former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei at 17.00 on Thursday 12 October.
The reading by Collins, US Poet Laureate from 2001–2003, will include the participation of ESA Astronaut Paolo Nespoli from the ISS Mission VITA.

Italy Reads is John Cabot's annual community-based English language reading and cultural exchange programme which focuses on classic American novels, helping to raise their profile among hundreds of students from high schools across Italy each year. The 2017 focus is the Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, specifically the edition which includes an introduction by Collins.

The event is free but guests must register in advance. There will be a book-signing opportunity but no book sales at the Accademia. Copies of recent publications by Collins are available on sale at English-language bookshops in Trastevere.

With the patronage of the US embassy in Rome, Italy Reads has focused on a number of classic American works since its foundation in 2009, including To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Our Town by Thornton Wilder, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

For the 2017 calendar of events, which includes an English Theatre of Rome production of The Belle of Amherst by William Luce, see the JCU website.

Photo of Billy Collins by B. Hayes.